Around 6 AM yesterday, when the victim, Ramesh Kumar, a property dealer, was walking with his wife near his house at Nanak Hera village in Chhawla, a car allegedly hit him, police said today.
Soon, another car approached and the occupants of both the vehicles allegedly started thrashing Kumar with rods. As he collapsed, the accused crushed Kumar's head with a heavy object and fled, a senior police official said.
A case of murder was registered and two persons have been arrested in this connection. As many as six others are believed to be absconding and efforts are on to nab them, DCP (southwest) Surendra Kumar said.
The incident might be a fallout of a longstanding rivalry between two families. The grandfathers of the victim and the prime accused were brothers who turned into rivals years ago over some issue, police said.
One of Kumar's son was murdered last year, following which one member of the rival family and three others were arrested, while another is currently lodged at a jail in Haryana, an official privy to the probe said, adding around two years ago, Kumar's son had thrashed a youth of the rival family, following which the latter had committed suicide.